Marblehead Football Team Celebrates Thrilling Super Bowl Triumph

MARBLEHEAD, MA — Connor Cronin repeatedly raised his hands in the air and soaked in the surging energy of the Marblehead High crowd that he had so much a part of creating in the final minutes of Thursday afternoon's Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium.

A 72-yard touchdown catch from Josh Robertson with five seconds left in the first half, an 83-yard TD catch-and-run from Robertson when it seemed history was slipping away from the Magicians late in the fourth quarter, and a game-clinching interception with 73 seconds left on the clock all helped add up to a 35-28 victory and the first Super Bowl title in program history.

"We've never won a Super Bowl. So, for us, that's really the most important thing," Marblehead coach Jim Rudloff told Patch last week. "This year we would like to win it. We don't want to just go. We're not just happy to go."

The Magicians were seemingly well on the path to fulfilling their coach's prophecy when Robertson raced in from 7 yards for a 28-14 lead with 8:03 left in the third quarter. But North Attleboro responded with a 6:43 drive that ended in a score in and a seven-point game late in the third.

Marblehead pushed the ball back into Red Rocketeer territory but came up empty on a fourth-and-10 pass from the 33 with 10:02 on the clock, and North Attleboro had its chance to tie. Freshman quarterback Chase Frisoli found Gavin Wells for 19 yards on a fourth-and-8 at midfield and Tyler DeMattio punched in the tying score with 4:20 to play.

Backed up to its own 13 to start the next drive, the first two Marblehead plays went nowhere before Robertson connected with Cronin on an inside screen and the speedy junior did the rest —outracing the defense 83 yards for a 35-28 lead with 3:22 to go.

It was then Cronin, once again, who ended North Attleboro's one last chance to force overtime with an interception with 1:13 on the clock.

The victory capped a 13-0 fall season for Marblehead — and was the program's 20th victory in a single calendar year with the coronavirus crisis postponing last fall's campaign to shortened, "Fall 2" wedge season from February to April.

The teams raced out to a fast start on the Gillette tuf Thursday afternoon with Marblehead taking a 7-0 lead on a 6-yard TD pass from Robertson to Cronin and North Attleboro answering with a DeMattio 6-yard TD run with 6:05 left in the half.

A 4-yard DeMattio TD run looked like it would give North Attleboro the lead at the half, but Robertson and Cronin had some surprise plans right before the break as Robertson found Cronin streaking down the seam between two defenders and he outraced three Red Rocketeers for a dive past the goal line with five seconds left in the second quarter.

Marblehead carried the momentum into the third quarter with a 20-yard TD from George Percy and Robertson's second TD carry of the game, before the teams exchanged blows in an epic final 18 minutes that saw Cronin and the Magicians deservedly standing tall with the history-making trophy in the end.

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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